ROTHER JONATHAN SERIES"— NO. 



PACKINLG 
JD MABKETIKG 
FRUITS 




Copyright, 1905 
By The Fruit-Grower Co. 
St. Joseph, Mo. 




ClassS B^( pQ 
Book ,\A/ 4 



PACKING AND 

MARKETING 

FRUITS 



How Fruits Should Be Handled to Carry 

to Market in Best Condition and 

Present Most Attractive 

Appearance 

By F; A/WAUGH 

Professor of Horticulture, Massachusetts 
Agricultural College 



PUBLISHED BY THE FRUIT=GROWER COMPANY 
SAINT JOSEPH. MISSOURI 

1905 



Brother Jonathan 
Series 




Booklet No. 5 



Publisher 's Note 



The author of this little book is Prof. F. A. 
Waugh, of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, 
and formerly of Kansas. He has for many years 
made a special study of the fruit markets of the 
United States, Canada and Europe, and of all the 
methods employed in handling and selling fruit. 
He is also the author of a more extensive work on 
the same subject, entitled "Fruit Harvesting, Storing 
and Marketing," published by the Orange Judd Co., 
New York. We shall be happy to supply this book 
to those who may desire it direct from The Fruit- 
Grower office for $1.00, postage prepaid, which is 
the publishers' price. 



Introductory Kemarks 

The buying and selling of fruit in America is 
largely in the hands of commission men, speculators 
and others professionally engaged in the traffic, but 
not interested directly in fruit growing. This ten- 
dency to transfer the commercial part of the business 
out of the hands of the fruit-growers and into the 
hands of quite another set of men will probably con- 
tinue to increase the difference pointed out. In other 
words, the business of trading in fruits belongs less to 
the farmers and fruit-growers than it does to the 
commission men, speculators, cold storage men, pro- 
fessional buyers, transportation men, and others of 
that class. 

It is hardly necessary, however, to preface the fol- 
lowing pages with an explanation that they are not 
addressed to the men of this latter class, even though 
they do have the largest interest in fruit marketing. 
The fruit-grower continues to have his interest in the 
matter, too; and it is the interest of the producer that 
The Fruit-Grower has first in mind. There are two 
other reasons why the present author does not under- 
take to instruct the speculators and commission men: 
First, they are usually quite able to take care of 
themselves; second, the present scribe has never 
studied their business from their own standpoint. 

It is the plain purpose of this book, therefore, to 
help the fruit-grower. If anything can be done to 
help him in disposing of his crop at a profit the 
purpose of this book shall have been fully satisfied. 

There can be no doubt but that the fruit-grower 
needs to study carefully this business of fruit mar- 
keting. It is one thing to grow good fruit, and quite 
another to get profitable returns from it. The diffi- 
culties are growing constantly larger and larger. The; 



6 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

development of business continually introduces new 
complications. New markets have to be reached. 
New customers have to be consulted. New ideas in 
transportation are brought forward. New packages 
are proposed every day. New schemes are in sight 
everywhere. Market conditions are every day becom- 
ing more and more complex. Unless one studies the 
subject carefully and ceaselessly he must soon fall 
behind the times. 

The complexity of the subject stands as one of the 
chief reasons why the fruit-grower should study 
deeply into the fundamental questions underlying the 
whole subject of fruit marketing. Only in this way 
can he properly understand the various and often 
surprising facts which come to his acquaintance. 

A fruit-grower, to be successful in his business, 
must know how to grow good fruit, and he should be 
able to do this at a minimum cost. It is often said 
that good fruit sells itself, and this is true to a cer- 
tain extent, so that a knowledge of fruit-growing is a 
first essential in fruit selling. Yet after the fruit is 
grown there are still two matters which the fruit- 
grower ought to understand in order to make his 
undertaking a financial success: First, he should 
have a broad knowledge of the general principles 
governing the business of trading in fruit; and sec- 
ond, he must be master of an infinite number of little 
details, every one of which is essential to complete 
success. 

A few of these little details can be set forth in a 
work like this, but many of them can be learned by 
experience only. The main purpose and use of this 
little text book, from the nature of things, must be to 
set forth in systematic order the general principles 
involved. Let us understand therefore, at the outset, 
that it is impossible to tell everything which is 
important. There will still be many things for the 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 7 

fruit-grower to learn after he has mastered all the 
instructions here given. Still these instructions are 
none the less necessary. 

It is the plan of this booklet to treat the different 
fruits separately, discussing picking, packing, stor- 
age, etc., for each. The apple is placed first, because 
it is the most important of our American fruits. 
Many of the methods employed in marketing apples 
are applicable also to other fruits, so that in subse- 
quent chapters 'it will often be necessary to repeat 
statements already made or to refer to what has 
gone before. The latter alternative will usually be 
adopted. 

The index at the back of the book will doubtless 
make it easy to find any information required. 

The Truit Markets 

The man who expects to grow fruit for market 
ought to understand something about the fruit mar- 
kets. There are many different markets, and they 
all have their peculiarities. For a proper understand- 
ing of the matter it will be best to divide these mar- 
kets into two general classes: (1) the retail markets, 
and (2) the wholesale markets. In this country the 
wholesale markets are much the larger and absorb 
the great majority of all fruits. The retail markets 
are numerous and growing, however, and ought to be 
more commonly and more carefully cultivated. 

There are great advantages in selling fruit at retail 
whenever the fruit-grower can do it. The expenses 
of freight, the charges of the commission man, and 
the loss by various sorts of shrinkage are all elim- 
inated. These often amount to more than the initial 
price of the fruit. 

In selling fruit direct to one's own customers at 
retail one can cultivate a much larger list of vari- 
eties. Whereas the wholesale grower is obliged to 



8 FRUIT-GROAVER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

confine himself to one or two varieties, like Ben 
Davis or Missouri Pippin, the retail grower can sell 
almost any good apple. This enables him to cover a 
much longer season. 

The mistake is often made of thinking that any 
sort of fruit can be sold in the home market. When 
one ships apples to the city markets one expects to 
S'end the best; but poorly graded, poorly colored, sec- 
ond class fruit will go in a country store or with 
country customers. One ought to remember that in 
these direct sales he is held personally responsible to 
an extent not known in the large markets. Further- 
more the customer who buys a lot of apples at home 
in an apple country is entitled to expect som.ething 
good. It is an old saying that the shoe-maker's chil- 
dren go barefoot; and it is an unpleasant modern 
illustration of it that one can buy better apples in 
New York than in the apple regions, or that one can 
get better Chicago beef in London than in Chicago. 
Such things ought not to be, and everybody knows 
they ought not. If one expects to cultivate his retail 
trade he must serve his country customers decently, 
and that means that they must have good goods. 

There are many other ways of selling fruit at 
retail except to peddle it out on the streets of one's 
home village. Some men of enterprise gradually 
work up a list of city customers to whom they ship a 
certain quantity of fruit every fall. Any right-minded 
banker in Denver, Kansas City or Pittsburg would 
sooner have three barrels of fine apples fresh from 
the grower, whom he knows, than to get the same 
fruit at half the price from a commission house or 
groceryman in his own city. There are thousands of 
barrels of apples sold direct at retail in this manner 
every fall, and it is one of the best ways ever devised 
of selling fruit. "Prom producer to consumer direct" 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 9 

has long been the dream of trade; and here we have 
it in perfection. 

Several growers and packers have recently 
adopted the plan of selling direct and securing their 
customers by magazine advertising. Almost all the 
leading magazines, such as Harper's, Scribner's, etc., 
last winter carried advertisements of growers and 
packers who offered to send fine Greenings, Baldwins 
or Jonathans by express at $3 the box. 

These different methods of reaching the consum- 
ers direct are coming more and more into favor, and 
wherever they can be operated they should be freely 
tried. 

The wholesale market in this country is growing 
to be rather complicated. It is difficult to give a 
comprehensive sketch of it in a small compass. 
Briefly we may say that the grower who has pro- 
duced a crop of apples has several different methods 
open for disposing of his crop. The following are 
the most common: 

1. He may sell the crop on the trees for a lump 
sum, say $7 50 for the orchard. The buyer picks, 
sorts and handles the fruit. 

2. He may sell the crop on the trees at a fixed 
price per barrel. The best way is to make a straight 
price, say $1.35 a barrel for firsts and seconds, allow- 
ing the buyer to grade them to suit himself. Some- 
times two prices are made, say $1,65 for firsts and $1 
for seconds. In this case there is apt to be some dif- 
ference of opinion about the grading. In either case 
the picking and packing may be either at the expense 
of the buyer or of the seller, as may be agreed. 

3. He may pick, grade and barrel the fruit, and 
s<ell it to a buyer on the ground. 

4. He may pick, grade and pack the stock and 
send it direct to a commission man, who sells it for 
what he can get and returns the proceeds. 



10 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

5. He may place the fruit in his own storage 
house and sell it out during the winter whenever he 
thinks the market most favorable. 

6. He may send his fruit to a city cold storage 
house, where he can rent space for 30 to 50 cents a 
barrel for the season, and he will then draw his fruit 
out and sell it (usually through a commission dealer) 
at any time during the winter when he thinks best. 

7. He may sell his fruit on "joint account," if he 
can find any dealer who will go into the scheme with 
him . In this case the dealer pays the grower a cer- 
tain fixed rate per barrel at picking time, which rate 
is considerably less than the probable selling price of 
the fruit. It may be $1 a barrel. Then the dealer 
takes charge of the fruit in storage and sells it off 
during the winter whenever he has the best oppor- 
tunities. After the fruit is all sold the dealer and the 
grower have a final settlement. At this time the 
amount originally paid the grower is deducted from 
the net proceeds and the difference is divided equally 
between the dealer and the grower. This method has 
been found to work eminently well in a few cases, 
but it is not capable of wide application. 

8. He may ship his fruit to a foreign market. In 
the case of apples this usually means Liverpool or 
London. These foreign shipments may be made 
through American agents, or dire'ct to salesmen in 
the cities of final destination. Such shipments should 
not be made except after correspondence with the 
agents. During the last few years such shipments 
have usually paid fair prices, the net receipts being 
sometimes more and sometimes less than would have 
been secured by selling the same fruit at home. The 
foreign market, however, offers a splendid outlet for 
much of our American fruit crop, and it ought to be 
carefully cultivated. It is the principal market for 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 11 



the Canadian crop, especially the Nova Scotia apple 
crop. 

Every man must make his own choice between 
these various methods of selling. It is not possible to 
say that one method is better or worse than another. 
The greater a man's knowledge of the fruit trade and 
the larger his financial resources the longer he can 
afford to hold control of his own fruit. If he knows 
nothing about the business and is obliged to have 
some money right off to buy chewing tobacco or pay 
his taxes, it is probably better for him to sell the 
fruit on the trees or on the ground. 

Ticking Apples 

It is a delicate question to determine just when 
apples ought to be picked. There are some reasons 
why it is desirable to pick as early as possible. Early 
picking reduces the danger from wind storms and 
saves considerable loss from windfalls under all cir- 
cumstances. On the other hand, apples color up best 
when they are left comparatively long on the trees. 
Many varieties do not color thoroughly until after 
the leaves thin out considerably. Some varieties can 
be left to advantage long after the first frost. This 
depends a good deal, of course, on the variety itself 
and its habit of holding onto the tree. Northern Spy 
and Ben Davis hold on extremely late, while Wealthy 
and Wagener are apt to fall as soon as they are ripe, 
or even before. 

If apples are to be sent to storage another factor 
comes into consideration in determining the proper 
time for picking. It used to be thought that apples 
should be picked before they were mature in order 
to have them hold well in cold storage. The 'extens- 
ive experiments of the Department of Agriculture in 
recent years have shown that this idea is wrong. 
Nearly all varieties stand cold storage best if thor- 



12 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 



oughly ripe and well colored, but not overripe. Such 
varieties as are subject to scald should be given spe- 
cial attention in this respect, as it is found that the 
scald is worse on apples picked before maturity. 
Thoroughly ripe apples, well colored, are not nearly 
so much subject to scald as are green, uncolored 
specimens. 

The importance of having the fruit nicely colored 
and ripened when picked is so great that many of 
the best growers who make a specialty of fancy 
grades have adopted the practice of picking the 
apple trees over two, three, or even four times. At 
each picking they take off such fruit as is ripe, well 
colored, and up to size. The rest of the apples are 
allowed to hang, and it is found that they will 
increase greatly in size toward the end of the season 
and will color up and otherwise improve long after 
the first lot would have fallen to the ground. Of 
course this method of picking over the trees several 
times would be too expensive with cheap fruit and 
with all poorer grades of apples. It is strongly rec- 
ommended, however, for early varieties and fancy 
grades. 

There have been all sorts of mechanical pickers 
advertised, but none of them has ever become pop- 
ular. They are of two kinds. The first kind is in- 
tended to pick a single apple at a time out of the 
higher branches, and consists- of some sort of a 
pocket hung on the end of a long pole. These con- 
trivances are too slow and cumbersome for any com- 
mercial work. The second style of apple picker 
presents some modification of the old practice of 
shaking apples off the trees. It furnishes some kind 
of a spread held under the branches, upon which the 
apples are shaken down. While this method is 
cheap enough to lyiake it commercially available, it 
is too rough for the exacting demands of present-day 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 13 

business. By all means the best way of putting up 
commercial apples is to pick them by hand from the 
trees. 

There is something of a knack in picking apples, 
but unfortunately expert apple pickers are not often 
to be hired. The fruit-grower is usually obliged to 
put up with ordinary day labor and to make up in 
the carefulness of his own supervision the lack of 
experience on the part of the pickers. Apple pick- 
ers usually get the prevailing day wages, that is 
from one dollar to one dollar and seventy-five cents 
a day. Apples are sometimes picked by the bushel 
or barrel, but this practice is not common and is not 
to be recommended. When it is indulged in, the 
price paid is from eight to fifteen cents . a barrel. 
The writer has recently been told, on pretty good 
authority, of a picker who picked one hundred bar- 
rels of apples from the trees in one day. Any such 
slam-banging work as that ought to be prohibited in 
any well regulated orchard. The ordinary picker 
will pick from twelve to twenty barrels a day. 

Apples should be picked with the stems on and 
not torn from the trees. Where the stem is pulled 
out of the apple, the skin is usually broken and an 
opportunity for decay given. 

Some pickers prefer to pick into a sack tied over 
the shoulder. The best contrivance, however, is 
undoubtedly the swinging-bail half-bushel basket. 
This is made in various styles, usually of oak or elm 
splints. These baskets are now used in such large 
quantities that they can be bought at very reasonable 
prices. If fine fruit is to be handled with special 
care, it is worth while to have the baskets padded 
inside. Each basket should be furnished with a hook 
made by bending a strong three-eighths inch wire 
into the form of a very crooked S. This can be 
hooked over the limb of the tree so as to leave the 



14 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 




Swing-bail Half-bushel Basket 

picker free to use both hands. When the picking is 
being done in large trees this same hook allows the 
basket to be let down to the ground by a strap or 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 15 

rope, where it is emptied by an assistant, thus mak- 
ing it unnecessary for the picker to climb up and 
down the tree for every basketful. 

Picking is greatly expedited by the use of suitable 
ladders. The best ones are of two forms. The first 
form is the step ladder, which should always have 
three legs instead of four. These step ladders are 
made in large quantities now for this particular kind 
of work. It is probably cheapest to buy ready-made 
ladders if any considerable number is wanted. Of 
course, any handy man can make one or two such 
step ladders if that is more convenient than to buy 
them. 

The second type of ladder used in apple picking 
is adapted for taller trees. It is of the ordinary form, 
that is with two rails. Very often the two rails are 
brought together at the top, making the top pointed. 
This makes it easier to adjust the ladder securely 
into or against the top of the large apple tree. This 
ladder should also be as light and strong as possible. 
They are made in large numbers and sold at low 
prices. 

Various practices prevail with regard to the im- 
mediate disposal of apples when they are taken from 
the trees. Sometimes they are placed in piles on 
the ground. Sometimes they are put into barrels 
without sorting and left in the orchard; sometimes 
they are put unsorted into barrels and carried to the 
temporary storage house; sometimes they are imme- 
diately sorted, barreled, headed up, and sent to stor- 
age. If the stock is going to cold storage, which is 
now the customary method, the last named plan of 
handling the fruit is undoubtedly the best. It cer- 
tainly is a mistake in all cases to leave the fruit on 
the ground even for a few hours. If there is good 
storage at home and handy by, it is a very good 
practice to put the apples into barrels unsorted and 



16 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

take them immediately to the storage house, where 
they can be sorted and packed more at leisure. 
Under all circumstances, however, they ought to be 
put into as cool a place as possible with the least 
possible delay. In handling fancy grades of stock in 
barrels, it is probably best to pick the fruit, sort, 
pack and head it up at once and put it immediately 
into cold refrigerator cars, sending these off as expe- 
ditiously as possible to the cold storage plant. This 
method is actually practiced on a large scale by some 
of the best growers. There is no extraordinary 
expense in it, in fact nothing out of common except 
the expense of the refrigerator cars, which has been 
shown to be entirely profitable with good fruit. 

When apples are taken to the temporary storage 
houses without sorting, it is best to grade them over 
as soon as convenient. This is inore necessary if the 
grade of the fruit is low. If there is considerable 
fungus, they should be sorted at once, all first-grade 
fruit being put by itself. In case the fruit comes 
from the trees in extra good condition, with no fun- 
gus and very few culls, there is not so much urgency 
in this early sorting. In general, however, it is a 
mistake to leave the fruit ungraded, as is sometimes 
done, up to the time when it is sent to market, 
which may be late in the spring. 

Sorting apples 

The grading of the fruit is extremely important 
from every point of view. There is hardly anything 
which affects the price secured more than this. 
Many fine apples bring outrageously low prices 
because they are carelessly, ignorantly, or deceit- 
fully graded and packed. 

Proper grading requires good judgment and con- 
siderable experience. The man who sorts and packs 
the fruit should be the expert of the gang. The man- 



PACRING AND MARKETING FRUITS 



ager can afford to pay him good wages, although as 
a matter of fact such men rarely secure more than 
two dollars a day. 

We have already recommended that the sorting 
be d-)ne immediately after the fruit is picked, either 
in the field or in the temporary storage house. Some 
men spread the fruit on the ground for sorting. It 
is a good deal better to have sorting tables, which 
should be three feet wide and six to eight feet long. 
They should be eight inches deep and should be put 
on trestles or legs so as to stand about three feet tour 
inches from the ground. It is good policy to have the 
bottom and sides padded to prevent bruising of the 
fruit. We have frequently seen the bottoms made 
with slats, the idea being to allow the leaves and 
other rubbish to sift through. This is not a good 
practical construction. In the first place it weakens 
the bottom, and in the second place these slats are 
alwaj^s inclined to bruise the fruit more or less. It 
is easy enough to dispose of the rubbish in some 
other way. 

On the table like that here descr bed from two 
to four barrels of fruit can be spread out at once. It 
is desirable to have a considerable quantity of fruit 
within the reach of the man who is sorting in order 
that he may work rapidly and secure a uniform 
grade. 

Some of these sorting tables are made with a 
chute or spout at one end, usually furnished with a 
cloth spout leading into the barrel, through which 
the apples are allowed to run. If managed with 
some care the apples can be handled in this way 
without severe bruising. In the judgment of the 
writer it is much better, however, to sort the apples 
into baskets. These should be of the kind already 
described for picking. The half-bushel swinging- 



18 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

bail basket can be let down into the barrel and the 
fruit poured out with a minimum of bruising'. 

It is desirable that sorting be done as much as 
possible by one man. Frequent shifting about on 
this job always gives an uneven grading of fruit. 

The question of whether a certain apple should 
be put into the first or into the second grade is 
largely a matter of judgment in the end. It depends 
also upon the run of the lot. If the apples are all 
running large, then medium sized specimens should 
be put among the seconds. In other words, it is 
more important that a barrel of apples should be 
uniform in size than that they should attain any 
particular size. The question is relative rather than 
absolute. 

Nevertheless the Apple Shippers' Association has 
adopted a rule, which is departed from when neces- 
sary, and which is enforced in critical cases. Their 
rule is as follows: 

The standard for size for No. 1 apples shall be 
not less than 2i/^ inches in diameter, and shall 
include such varieties as Ben Davis, Willow Twig, 
Baldwin, Greening, and other varieties kindred in 
size. The standard for such varieties as Romanite, 
Russet, Winesap, Jonathan, Missouri Pippin, and 
other varieties kindred in size shall not be less than 
214 inches. And, further. No. 1 apples shall be at 
time of packing practically free from the action of 
worms, defacement of surface, or breaking of skin; 
shall be hand picked from the tree, a bright and 
normal color and shapely form. 

No. 2 apples shall be hand picked from the tree; 
shall not be smaller than 214 inches in diameter. The 
skin must not be broken or the apple bruised. The 
grade must be faced and packed with as much care 
as No. 1 fruit. 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 19 

The Apple 'Barrel 

Before g-oing on to see how apples are packed, it 
will be best to stop a moment to consider the stand- 
ard apple packages. Of these the barrel stands first. 

The standard American apple barrel has ^.he fol- 
lowing dimensions: diameter at top, 17i^ inches; 
circumference at middle, 64 inches; length of staves, 
2 8 14 inches. This is known everywhere as the stand- 
ard apple barrel, or the one hundred quart barrel. 

In Nova Scotia, and occasionally in Ontario, an- 
other barrel is used considerably different from the 
one just described. It is just a trifle longer, but the 
most distinctive difference lies in the fact that the 
staves are straighter. The barrel is made nearly 
cylindrical. The dimensions of the Nova Scotia bar- 
rel are: diameter of top, 17i^ inches; diameter at 
middle, 19 inches; length of staves, 29 inches. The 
two barrels may be more readily compared in the 
following table: 

COMPARISON OF NOVA SCOTIA AND AMERI- 
CAN APPLE BARRELS 



Diameter 


Diameter at 


Length of 


Capacity 


at Top 


Middle 


Staves 


17^ 


20% 


28H 


100 Quarts 
96 Quarts 


171/2 


19 


29 



American 

Nova Scotia 

The American apple barrel is a stronger package 
than the Nova Scotia barrel and will stand rough 
handling, such as loading on and off cars and trucks, 
better than the straight stave barrel. When it 
comes to shipping by boat across the Atlantic, how- 
ever, the Nova Scotia barrel has the call. This is 
because the longer straighter barrel, when stowed 
on its yide on shipboard, does not rock so much as 
the barrel with bended staves. It therefore keeps 
the fruit in better condition in going across. 



20 FRUIT-GKOWEK, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

There is, of course, a certain advantage to the 
growei 1.1 using a ninety-six quart barrel in place of 
a one nundred quart barrel. Four quarts of apples 
are woiih saving. At this rate a man would gain 
one bail el in twenty-five, which would be a saving 
of four i.er cent. In most factories any adjustment 
which accomplishes a saving of four per cent is con- 
sidered v/'ell worth making. A smaller barrel fur- 
nishes an even three bushels, which is all the pur- 
chaser ia really entitled to. The question of adopting 
the ninety-six quart barrel in the United States has 
often been discussed, but the proposition has never 
made niuch headway. It will doubtless be a long 
time before we ever come to it. , 

Apple barrels are made out of all sorts of lumber, 
usually from such timber as is not very valuable foi 
other purposes. Elm is used to a con'^-iderable extent 
and makes a good barrel. Hickory used to be used, 
but it is now too expensive. Hemlock and spruce 
are used to some extent; so is cheap pine. Chestnut 
and birch are occasionally worked up into barrels. 
The hoops are usually made out of the same stock, 
although occasionally timber is worked up into hoop 
stock which is not fit for anything else. In some 
parts of the country split hoops are used, in which 
cas-e young birches and large alders are worked up. 

The best custom for one buying apple barrels is 
to get them knocked down, staves, heads and hoops 
separate. It is best, of course, to buy this stock in 
car lots. It is then delivered on the farm of the 
grower to be worked up into barrels on the premises. 
A small cooper shop can be easily rigged up. In the 
apple growing sections itinerant coopers go about 
from farm to farm during the summer and autumn 
working this stock up into barrels. A good handy 
man on the farm, with a little practice, can learn to 
put up apple barrels himself. A small kit of tools is 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 21 



required, but nothing very elaborate or expensive. 
The apple barrels made up in this way cost all the 
way from fifteen to thirty-five cents each, depending 
very largely, of course, on the original cost of the 
stock. During the last two years stock has been 
very scarce and high, owing, it is said, to the opera- 
tion of a barrel trust. At present the production of 
barrel stock seems to be catching up with the de- 
mand, and the tendency is toward easier prices. 

In many places it is customary to use second- 
hand barrels for packing apples. The common flour 
barrels are the ones usually impressed into this ser- 
vice. A common flour barrel has the same capacity 
and dimensions as the standard ^pple barrel, and 
answers the purpose fairly well. However, a second- 
hand barrel can never be made to look as good as 
new. In many cases dirty barrels are bought and 
are used withoAt i^roper cleaning. In such cases 
they detract greatly from the appearance of the 
fruit, and the commission man knocks off on the 
price accordingly. The apple grower who has a con- 
siderable crop to handle cannot afford to bother 
with flour barrels. He should by all means use 
fresh-made apple barrels. 

Apple 3oxes 

During recent years there has been a good deal of 
discussion as to the merits of the apple box. Many 
growers believe that there is a future for apples 
packed in this way. While the use of the box has 
been strenuously objected to in some quarters, espe- 
cially by the commission men and fruit dealers, it 
has not always been clear that their advice was dis- 
interested. In fact, it is common knowledge that in 
some cases they have bought apples in barrels and 
repacked them in boxes, making quite a profit for 
themselves thereby. The writer feels justified in 



22 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

relating here an item of personal experience. Two 
years ago we had some Gravenstein, Mcintosh and 
Fameuse apples ready for market in October. We 
wrote to the commission men with whom we were 
doing business at that time — a thoroughly reliable 
firm, by the way — asking them if they would advise 
us shipping in boxes. Their reply was about as fol- 
lows: "The fruit is yours. You can do as you please 
with it. Our advice would be, however, not to use 
any boxes." Inasmuch as we were anxious to learn 
how the fruit would handle, and as we had the boxes 
on hand, we divided the shipment, sending one-half 
in barrels and one-half in boxes. The fruit was all 
of the same grade, but that in boxes was wrapped in 
paper. The whole lot was sent to the commission 
man whose advice has just been quoted. When the 
returns came back we found that the barrels had 
sold for $2 each, which was the top quotation at the 
time; but the boxes had also sold for $2 each. In 
other words, one bushel of apples nicely wrapped 
and packed in boxes brought just as much as three 
bushels of the same fruit in a barrel. 

The three boxes cost 45 cents. A barrel at that 
time was worth 35 to 40 cents. A little more time 
was consumed in packing the three boxes than in 
packing one barrel. The cost of the paper wrapping 
may be fairly disregarded. 

The great advantage of the box lies not so much 
in the fact that it displays the fruit to better advant- 
age, for it does not always do so, but in the fact that 
it presents a quantity of fruit which many consum- 
ers prefer to purchase. There are very few city 
families who find it convenient or economical to buy 
a barrel at one time. The quantity "is more than the 
family will consume without waste, and there is no 
place in the house where there is room for the barrel 
to stand. A bushel of apples, however, is not too 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 23 

much for the smallest family, and a neat square box 
can be easily stowed even in a New York City flat. 

Experience has demonstrated that the apple box 
has come to stay . It is bound to be used, and its use 
will be extended. This does not mean, however, that 
it will supplant the apple barrel. It certainly will 
not do so, at least for many years to come. The 
apple box must be used only for fancy grades of 
fruit. This is not so much because the package costs 
more, as because the expense of selling it is some- 
what greater and because the person buying a pack- 
age of this kind expects it to contain something 
good. If the purchaser buys a box of apples and 
finds the fruit inferior, his resentment is much 
greater than if he has been cheated on a barrel of 
apples. Most purchasers have grown accustomed to 
being more or less swindled on apples in barrels. 

A great many different boxes have been proposed. 
These have been of different sizes, different forms, 
and differently constructed. We seem to be settling 
down rather rapidly, however, to a bushel box of 
standard size and construction. This box, which is 
now the most common, has the following inside di- 
mensions: 10x11x20 inches. This gives a capacity of 
2,200 cubic inches. A standard bushel contains 
2150.42 cubic inches, so that the box furnishes a little 
over the standard struck bushel (not a heaping 
bushel). 

A somewhat larger box is rather commonly used 
in Canada, but it is not to be recommended. 

These boxes are made with the ends of three- 
quarter inch stuff, and with the top, bottom and 
sides of lighter stuff. These last may run anywhere 
from one-quarter to one-half inch, but three-eighths- 
inch stuff is about right. 

There have been some experiments recently with 
smaller boxes, especially with half bushel sizes. The 



24 FRIIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEIPH, MO. 

writer feels confident tliat something of this kind 
will eventually find a place in the market, but noth- 
ing yet has been accomplished which can be given 
general recommendation. 

The bushel basket has been used to some extent, 
especially in the Chicago market, for apples, and has 
some advantages. It is easy to handle and pleases 
the customer. Such bushel baskets with covers cost 
about $12 a hundred. Half bushel baskets of the 
same form cost from $10 to $11 a hundred. 

Packing Apples 

A man who packs apples should have some expe- 
rience, and the judgment born of it, in-order to do 
his work well. Next to the man who grades the 
fruit, the one who packs it has the greatest respon- 
sibility. Many a sale of good fruit has been spoiled 
by poor packing . When fruit is to be shipped some 
distance, as across the ocean, the packing must be 
irreproachable. If barrels are poorly packed the 
fruit works loose, becomes bruised, and in many 
instances quite worthless. 

In packing a barrel with apples the barrel is 
placed on its head with the bottom out. Some good 
clean apples are put in for "facers." It is best to 
pour in 20 to 30 such apples at the start — just about 
enough to cover the head. The packer then places 
these in even circular rows, beginning around the 
outside and working in, setting each specimen with 
the stem down. It is important to see that the apples 
in this first tier — the facers — fit snugly together. 
Then a second tier is put on, facing stems down like 
the first. Now the real filling of the barrel begins. 
The sorted fruit, preferably placed in the swing-bail 
half-bushel basket already recommended, is poured 
in. This basket can be let down into the barrel and 
emptied with the least possible disturbance of the 



PACKING AND 3IARKETING FRUITS 25 

faced layers. After each half bushel of loose fruit 
has been poured in the barrel should be vigorously 
shaken. This shaking is essential. It settles the 
fruit together, and prevents the otherwise disastrous 
loosening when the barrel is shipped. When the 
barrel is practically full the top layer (which will be 
the bottom layer after the barrel is packed), is faced 
stems out in as neat a manner as possible. When 
the apples are all in and this last layer of facers on, 
the fruit should stand up two or three inches above 
the top of the barrel. 

The head Cor what is really the bottom of the 
ban el) is then put in place. A barrel press is now 
necessary. There are two types of barrel press in 
common use — the screw and the lever press. The 
writer prefers the latter. With either one the head- 
ing proceeds in the same manner. The upper hoops 
of the barrel are slightly loosened. The head is 
pressed down even with the chines, the hoops are 
driven home, and some sort of cleat is tacked in to 
help hold the head in place. 

The barrel is then marked with the stencil of the 
t,rower or packer, and with the name of the variety 
and grade. Sometimes it is also marked with the 
no me of the dealer to whom it is to be shipped. It 
i? then ready for delivery, either to the buyer or to 
the storage house. 

In packing apples in boxes the fruit is all put in 
by hand, especially when it is to be wrapped in 
paper. Care must be taken to get the boxes full. It 
u? 'even harder to make a box of apples full and 
tight than a barrel. Some shippers cover the packed 
fruit with paper and make it solid by putting in a 
duantity of excelsior next to the cover. This is prac- 
ticed more especially when sending boxes across the 
ocean, but is not to be generally recommended.^ 

When apples are nicely packed In boxes they 



26 



FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 



should go in in rows and tiers just as oranges are 
packed. On the Pacific Coast, where all these tricks 
are better understood than on this side of the Great 
Divide, they do this think excellently well. Mr. E. C. 
Dickerson of North Yakima, Wash., in the October, 




Fig. 1. 

1904, number of The Fruit-Grower told how they 
do it there. Here is his description: 

There are some thirty or forty sizes of apples, 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 



27 



covering all the varieties and their various sizes or 
grades, which can be packed into the standard apple 
box in thirty or forty different styles. For commer- 
cial packing and shipping requirements most of the 




Fig. 2. 

ordinary grades of apples grown can be handled in 
seven or eight different styles of packing, of which 
six different styles are shown and described below. 
Figure 1 shows a four-row box of apples. This 



28 



FRUIT-GROWER. ST. JOSEPH, MO. 



box is the largest sized apple that can be packed into 
the four-row grade. The box contains just ninety- 
six apples. There are nine grades of the four-row 
apple, the smaller of which is shown in Figure 2 and 




Fig. 3. 

contains 128 apples. Every layer in this box of 128 
is packed in the same manner as that shown by the 
top layer. In the box containing ninety-six the width 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 



29 



is too great to allow of their cheeks being all turned 
up, so in the lay.ers below, according to the size of 
the apples, one or more of the layers are placed 
stem down. 

Figure 3 shows the largest apples that can be 
packed into the five-row grade. The box contains 




Fig. 4. 

just 140 specimens. This grade cannot be packed 
with a long and narrow apple, as there must be four 
layers in this box. 



30 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

Figure 4 shows the smallest five-row apple that 
can be packed in this grade. The box contains five 
layers and 250 apples. All the layers in this grade 
are placed in the same manner as shown in the top 




Fig. 5. 

layer. This grade cannot be packed with a long 
apple. The five-row grades, which are sometimes 
called straight fives, are found in twenty-three dif- 



PACKIING AND MARKETING FRUITS 



31 



ferent grades reaching from 140 down to 250 speci- 
mens in each box. 

Figure 5 shows an odd grade of five-row apples. 
Without this style of a pack it is almost impossible 




Fig. 6. 

to pack all the apples from your orchard and have 
them all packed neatly and correctly. The box 
shown in Figure 5 contains 213 apples. In this 



32 FllUIT-GUOWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

grade the center of every apple in the third and fifth 
layers conies directly over the center of its corres- 
ponding apple in the first layer. The center of every 
apple in the fourth layer conies directly over the 
center of its mate in the second layer. There are 
three grades of this style. In one the first row will 
contain eight apples, the second seven, the third eight 
again and then seven and eight, making a total of 188 
apples in the box. In the second grade of this style, 
the first, last and every row will contain eight apples 
with the box holding just 200 specimens. In the 
third grade of this style the first, third and fifth rows 
will contain nine apples, while the second and fourth 
will contain only eight, making the box hold 21.3 
apples. 

The sixth and last style of packing shown is rep- 
resented by Figure 6. This box will contain seventy- 
two apples. Only the first of its four layers is 
shown. The core of all apples in the third layer will 
come directly over their mates in the first layer, but 
not over the cores of any apples in the second layer. 

Nothing has been said of the various grades of 
six-row apples, as they are too small to offer to the 
apple-eating public, though some pack and ship them 
to the penny fruit stands. The top layers of the 
apples in any of the grades must be high enough 
that when the cover is nailed on, the cover will touch 
each and every apple in that layer and touch it hard 
enough to compel every apple in the box to remain 
in touch with its neighbor apple in the box, the walls 
of the box itself, or both, as the case may be. 
throughout its entire period of transportation. 

When a box is finished packed the apples at the 
end of the box must not be more than an inch above 
the top of the box, while the center of the box should 
be from one to two inches higher, so as to make a 
beautiful curve for the top of the box, which helps 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 33 

to hold the apples in the box tog-ether more snugly. 
Though every person has not the gift for the making 
of a good apple packer, most of them after a careful 
reading of the above can after more or less practice 
succeed in packing- neatly and rapidly. But remem- 
ber practice makes perfect. In box apple packing 
rapidity and perfection do not go hand in hand. 

Apple Storage 

The storage of apples presents one of the largest 
factors in the modern apple business, because the 
bulk of the trade is with winter fruit, which is 
always stored for a g-reater or less period. Even 
from the first there has been some storage. In olden 
days apples used to be stored in piles in the orchard, 
in pits in the ground, in bulk in the hay inow, in bins 
in the cellar, and in various other ways. Nearly all 
of these old-fashioned ways are still practiced to 
some extent, although they have very little influence 
on the moderji anple business. 

Following these crude methods of storage there 
came into practice a few years ago different methods 
of handling apples in specially made storage houses. 
At the beginning- these were seldom cr never sup- 
plied with artificial refrigeration. The theory of 
construction was simply to provide a well insulated 
wall and then to cool down the storage chamber by 
ventilation. Such houses or storage connpartments 
are no wall classed together under the name "com- 
mon storage." "Common storage" is distinguished 
from "cold storage," the latter referring to such 
houses or chambers as are supplied with artificial 
refrigeration. 

There has been a strong tendency in the last few 
years to do away with the common storage in favor 
of the genuine cold storage. Great improvements 
have undoubtedly been made in the process of cold 



34 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

storage, and the matter is much better understood 
than it was a few years ago. Such storage is there- 
fore both safer and cheaper. Nevertheless the com- 
mon storage has not altogether gone out of use. One 
of the largest dealers in New York State — a man of 
wide practical experience in all systems of storage — 
recently told the writer that he would as soon have 
apples in common storage as in the best cold storage. 




n HI 

% In 



1 



Fig. 7 — Mr. Green's Storage House 

This is perhaps an extreme view, but it shows that 
the difference between the two systems is not so 
g: aat as we have sometimes been led to believe. 

The construction of a house for common storage 
may best be understood by examining one of two con- 
crete cases. Figure 7 represents the storage house 
of Mr. Charles L. Green, East Wilton, Maine, which 
was built in 1903. This building is 30x40 feet, with 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 35 

12 foot posts upon the sills. It also has a cellar or 
lower story dug out of a gravel bank and facing 
toward the south. There is a large door to this base- 
ment story so that a load of apples can be backed in 
without unloading. The cellar walls are b*uilt of 
quarried granite laid solid in cement. The underpin- 
ning is of granite laid in Portland cement and lined 
with brick . The basement will hold one thousand 
barrels, and the first floor will hold approximately 
the same amount. 

The building is sheathed on the outside with 
matched hemlock covered with thick sheathing paper 
and this in turn covered with clapboards and well 
painted. The studding were also sheathed again 
inside and then a new course of studding set around 
inside of the first and sheathed again. This gives two 
dead air spaces and three matched sheathings besides 
the paper, clapboards and paint. The floor between 
the storage room and cellar is double, with hemlock 
for the under course and matched birch on top with 
heavy paper between. Both storage rooms have 
double doors and windows with matched board 
blinds inside. There is an attic room which will 
accommodate twelve hundred empty barrels. The 
building cost twelve hundred dollars. 

Another very excellent building for the common 
storage of apples which has been frequently described 
and which is certainly a model of its kind is that 
shown in figure 8, and owned by Mr. T. L. Kinney, 
South Hero, Vermont. This house was built in 188 8 
and stands 30x50 feet on the ground. It has a base- 
ment which will accommodate 1,000 barrels, and the 
main floor will receive an equal number. There is 
an attic for the storage of empty barrels, cooper's 
stock, etc. The walls are constructed in the follow- 
ing manner: The studding are 3x4 inches. On the 
outside is a course of one-inch matched pine covered 



36 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

with building paper and again with clapboards. On 
the sides of the studs small furring strips are run 
in. Upon these a lath and plaster coat is made from 
stud to stud. This produces a double dead air space. 
On the inside of the stud is another one-inch course 




Fig, 8 — Mr. T. L. Kinney's Storage House 

of matched pine covered by building paper and by 
one-half-inch boards all over the inside. There are 
glass windows and heavy matched board blinds. This 
house cost fifteen hundred dollars and has been 
entirely successful. 

Various other houses more or less like the two 
here described have been built in all parts of the 
country. So far as the writer knows these have 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 37 

proyed uniformly successful in the northern states 
where they have been well built and intelligently 
managed. In the southern states they are less satis- 
factory, and in any case they are unreliable when 
mismanaged. 

The two important things to be looked after in 
building these houses for common storage are (1) 
insulation, and (2) ventilation. 

Insulation is provided as described above by mak- 
ing very tight walls with dead air spaces. Formerly 
it was recommended to fill the spaces with sawdust 
or some similar material. This is now known to be 
inadvisable. 

Ventilation should be secured by having a reason- 
able number of windows which may be easily opened 
ana shut. These should be near the floor or else 
special ventilators should be provided at the floor 
level, opening in all sides of the building. An ade- 
quate discharge for warm air must also be provided 
for from the upper part of the storage room. This is 
usually secured by ventilating shafts running from 
the storage room to the roof. A circulation of ait- 
can be secured at critical times with this construc- 
tion by lighting a lamp and placing it on a small 
shelf in the ventilating shaft. The windows of such 
storage houses are opened at night when the tem- 
perature is low and are closed early in the morning 
before the thermometer goes up. In this way a 
storage house can be thoroughly cooled off and can 
be held at a very uniform temperature when once it 
is cooled . Of course the cooling is not so positive as 
with artificial refrigeration, nor can it be so quickly 
accomplished. 

The construction of cold storage houses with arti- 
ficial refrigeration is rather a complicated matter, 
which even the refrigeration engineers do not under- 
stand any too well. It would be going too far to take 



38 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

up that matter here, especially as very few apple 
growers ever undertake to build such storage houses. 

The ordinary practice in dealing with cold storage 
is for the grower or buyer of the apples to send them 
to a refrigerating house in the city. Space in these 
houses is rented. The ordinary price is from thirty 
to fifty cents a barrel for the season. A certain tem- 
perature is guaranteed. The apples may then be 
removed whenever the owner desires. 

It should be clearly understood by everyone who 
undertakes the cold storage of apples that the func- 
tion of the storage house is merely to maintain a 
uniform temperature of a desired degree throughout 
the compartment and during the storage season. 
Cold storage will not make number one fruit out 
of number two; nor will it altogether prevent the 
' natural process of deterioration. It simply checks 
the ordinary processes of decay. It appears that 
many persons have expected too much of cold storage 
in the past. 

While it is not necessary for the apple grower to 
know about the different systems of mechanical 
refrigeration, it is, nevertheless, a matter of consid- 
erable interest to him. Storage rooms are sometimes 
cooled directly with ice, although the direct cooling 
systems are not in very common use. Usually the 
rooms are cooled by the evaporation of the liquid 
gases. This gas is allowed to evaporate in or near 
the storage room and during its evaporation it takes 
up the heat from the room or fruit stored in it, 
thereby lowering the temperature. 

The following description of the methods usually 
•employed is taken from Mr. G. Harold Powell's bul- 
letin entitled "The Apple in Cold Storage." 

The refrigerating gases generally used are anhy- 
drous ammonia, sulphuric acid, and carbonic acid 
(also known as carbon anhydrid and carbon dioxid). 



PACIiING AND MARKETING FRUITS 39 

The cold temperature in the warehouses is usually 
produced by either of two methods, commonly known 
as the compression and the absorption systems. 

The compression system takes its name from the 
fact that the refrigerating gas — whether ammonia, 
carbonic acid, or sulphuric acid — is first compressed 
in a machine called a compressor. Heat is generated 
by the compression; the gas is then cooled and con- 
densed in pipes or coils called the condenser, either 
Immersed in water or having water running over 
them, and this converts the gas into a liquid. The 
liquefied gas then passes an expansion valve to pipes 
or coils called the refrigerator cooling coils or cooler, 
where it is evaporated by the heat which is with- 
drawn from the surroundings. The gas formed by 
the evaporation of the liquid returns to the com- 
pressor, is again condensed, then re-evaporated, and 
the cycle of refrigeration is repeated over and over. 

In the absorption system the gas is obtained by 
heating strong aqua ammonia in a still, thereby 
driving off the ammonia gas. The gas is then re- 
duced in a condenser to a liquid in a manner sim- 
ilar to the compression system. The liquefied am- 
monia produces refrigeration by evaporating in the 
cooling coils, and the gas is then absorbed by weak 
aqua ammonia in coils called an absorber. The 
resulting strong liquor is then pumped back to the 
still. The cycle of refrigeration is repeated contin- 
uously, and consists, first, in the generation of a gas 
by heating strong aqua ammonia in a still; second, 
in condensing the gas which is deposited from the 
water to a liquid in the condenser coils; third, in its 
evaporation to a gas in the cooling or refrigerator 
coils; fourth, in its absorption by the weak aqua 
ammonia in the absorber; and fifth, ttte ammonia 
liquor is piped to the still and redistilled. 

There are three general methods of producing the 



40 FRUIT-GKOWEIi, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

desired temperatures in cold-storage rooms, and 
these are known as the direct-expansion, the brine- 
circulating, and the indirect or air-circulating sys- 
tems. All three systems may be used iri a cold-stor- 
age plant, and in a given room or compartment the 
air-circulating system is sometimes used in connec- 
tion with the brine or the direct-expansion systems. 

In the direct-expansion system the liquefied gas 
evaporates directly in the cooling refrigerator coils 
or pipes which are placed in the refrigerator rooms. 
The heat used in the evaporation of the gas is 
absorbed from the room or from its contents, and the 
temperature is thereby reduced. The gas then 
returns to the compressor in the compression sys- 
tem, or to the absorber in the absorption system, and 
after being distilled in the latter case' begins the 
refrigerating cycle anew. 

In the brine-circulating system, the liquefied gas, 
instead of evaporating directly in coils in the storage 
room, evaporates in pipes surrounded by brine, or In 
a brine cooler. The heat used in the evaporation of 
the gas is absorbed from the brine rather than from 
the room and its contents, as in the direct-expansion 
system. The cold brine is then pumped to coils in 
the storage room and the heat of the room and its 
contents is absorbed by the cold brine. The warm 
brine is then returned to the tank or cooler from 
which it started and is recooled, while the gas 
returns to the condenser or to the absorber to renew 
the cycle of refrigeration. 

In the indirect or air-circulating system the air 
in a well-insulated room, which is sometimes called 
a coil room or a "bunker room," is first cooled, either 
by the direct-expansion or by the brine-circulating 
system. The cold air of the coil room is then forced 
through ducts to the storage rooms. After passing 
through the storage rooms it is returned by ducts to 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 41 



the coil room to be recooled and purified and to 
begin the circuit anew. 

There are many modifications in the details of 
these systems when applied to storage houses, but as 
this publication does not deal primarily with the 
engineering side of refrigeration it is the purpose to 
set forth approximately the fundamental principles 
on which the most common storage systems are 
based rather than to discuss their application or their 
respective merits. 

Extensive experiments in the cold storage of fruit, 
especially apples, carried on by the United States 
Department of Agriculture under the supervision of 
Mr. G. Harold Powell, have added materially to our 
knowledge of the subject in recent years. These 
experiments have strongly emphasized the import- 
ance of immediate storage. The fruit should be put 
into the storage room with the least possible delay 
after picking. Indeed, we know of one large apple 
grower who has cooled refrigerator cars standing on 
the railroad track waiting before picking begins. 
Just as fast as the fruit can be sorted it is barreled 
and hauled directly into these refrigerator cars. 
These cars are run right into the refrigerating house 
to be unloaded, so that the apples are out of cold 
storage for only a few hours at most, from the time 
they are picked until they are sold. 

It used to be thought that a temperature of 40 to 
4 2 degrees was best for storing apples, but recent 
experience has shown conclusively that the temper- 
ature in the storage chamber should be 31 or 32 
degrees, and that this should be maintained with 
the least possible variation throughout the storage 
season. ^ 

There is a diversity qf custom with respect to put- 
ting up the apples for storage. Usually they are 
stored in barrels, but the reason for this is often that 



42 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

the fruit handles more easily rather than that men 
have any notion that the apples ' will keep better 
when put up in that way. In fact, a good many fruit- 
growers who practice home storage of apples habit- 
ually store the fruit in bins. This is not the best 
method . In fact, it may fairly be questioned whether 
storage in bins is ever good practice. If fruit is to 
be stored for a short time only it is better to have 
it in a small package. If the package is open or 
ventilated, so much the better. The cold air reaches 
all parts of the receptacle and cools off all the fruit. 
If apples are to remain some time in storage, how- 
ever, it is better to have them in closed packages. 
Probably the best that can be done is to have them 
headed up in barrels. In open packages the fruit is 
liable to be injured by wilting. 

Wrapping of the fruit in papers as it is put into 
the package nearly always helps it to keep better. It 
extends the life of apples in storage, under favorable 
conditions, a month or more. 

A word ought to be said in this connection with 
regard to the scald. This is a malady which appears 
badly on stored fruit sometimes, especially in certain 
varieties, such as Rhode Island Greening. It seems 
to show worse on fruit that is picked before it is well 
colored and thoroughly ripe. A warm temperature 
in the storage room also tends to promote the devel- 
opment of the scald. 

Teaches 

It requires exceedingly nice judgment to know 
just when to pick a peach for market. For eating 
out of hand a peach should be picked early in the 
morning, just about sunrise, of that day when it is so 
ripe that it would fall to the ground if left till noon. 
Unfortunately this good, though somewhat imprac- 
ticable, rule cannot be applied in picking peaches for 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 43 

market. Especially when peaches have to be shipped 
a thousand miles or more, and must lie in the pack- 
ages some ten days or two weeks between the orchard 
and the table where they are eaten, it is manifestly 
impossible to ripen them thoroughly on the trees. 
The ideal, of course, is to leave them on the trees 
just as long as possible, and still get them to the 
consumer without prejudice. This means that the 
nearer the market the riper the fruit may be allowed 
to become, while the farther away is the market the 
greener the fruit must be picked. 

It is undeniable that mistakes are made every year 
on both sides. Some fruit is picked too soft and 
some is sent to market too green. The consumers, 
at least, see more of the latter mistake, and it seems 
to be fair to urge on shippers at the present day the 
propriety of ripening their peaches better before 
shipping. Nothing but long, and probably expens- 
ive, experience can determine just what stage of ma- 
turity is best. This varies also with different varieties 
and with the weather. Some varieties, like Elberta, 
can be allowed to ripen considerably further than 
other softer varieties, like Carman. In hot, muggy 
weather the fruit has to be picked greener to pre- 
vent the spread of rot. 

The fruit should be picked as early in the morn- 
ing as possible. This is a good rule anywhere. It is 
especially important for fruit which is to stand long 
shipment. 

The half-bushel basket with swinging handle is 
best for picking peaches. There is hardly any excep- 
tion to this statement . 

Peach pickers nearly always work by the day. If 
the picking is to be done by the basket the price will 
have to be agreed on in each case. There is no recog- 



44 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 




Georgia Peach CaiTier 

nized price for this work, like there is for picking 
strawberries in the strawberry sections. 

There are several different packages regularly 
used for peaches, but three types are much the most 
common. These are as follows: 

The Georgia carrier, or six-basket crate. This 
crate holds six four-quart baskets. The baskets are 
made of light veneer and are without handles. Three 
of these side by side, cover the bottom of the light 
slat crate. A light slat staging is laid on top of the 
three bottom baskets as soon as they are put in, and 
three more baskets go on top. The cover Is then 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 45 

nailed or stapled on, the crate is marked with the 
name of the variety and grade, and the package is 
ready for the car. 

The Jersey basket. This is a slat basket made in 
the form of the inverted frustum of a cone. In 
other words, it is a round basket with a flat bottom, 
wider at the top than at the bottonn. These baskets 
are made in various sizes, from 8 quarts to 32 quarts. 
The 16-quart size is probably the best, and is most 
used. The baskets are sometimes covered with slat 
covers, but oftener are simply covered over with 




Jersey Peach Basket . 

mosquito netting. Occasionally fancy peaches are 
packed in 10-quart, 14-quart or 16-quart Jersey bas- 
kets, and these are put up by twos in "pony" crates. 
In some sections of the country, -notably TVest Vir- 
ginia, this package is rather popular. The writer 
confesses himself unable to see anything really prac- 
tical in it. 

The Climax, or Michigan basket. This is the third 
form of the peach basket. It closely resembles the 



46 



FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 



popular climax grape basket. It is made of veneer, 
with a stiff handle. These are used in various sizes, 
but the 8-lb. and the 10-lb. sizes are much the com- 
monest. These baskets are sometimes covered with 
slat tops, but oftener with mosquito netting. This 
package has the advantage of going direct to the con- 
sumer with the least possible trouble to him. It is a 
more expensive package to handle than either of the 
others. 




Climax Peach Basket 

Peaches are graded according to s'ze and color. 
All peaches of any basket should be of the same size, 
and all first-grade peaches should be well colored. 
Two or three grades' are made, as the character of 
the fruit may require or the fancy of the shipper 
dictate. 

The fruit is usually graded in a packing shed, 
whither it is brought as fast as picked. In the shed 
it should be poured out on narrow tables for sorting. 
These ought to be padded to prevent bruising of the 
fruit. If several packers are to work together 
the tables should be divided into sections of conveni- 
ent length. The tables usually slant toward the 
packers, which helps to roll the fruit toward them, 
and which also gives them a better view of the fruit. 
Considerable skill is required to sort and pack 



I 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 47 

peaches rapidly and accurately, and well trained 
packers receive good wages. 

Nowadays, when peaches are to be shipped any 
distance, they are usually forwarded in refrigerator 
cars. This is especially the practice in Georgia, 
Texas and California. Good refrigerator car service 
is now almost a necessity to the peach business, and 
has been the means of extending both the area of 
peach growing and the period of consumption very 
considerably. 

Peaches may also be kept for a certain time in 
cold storage. Powell's experiments have shown that 
firm, well-colored fruit will keep from two to three 
weeks in a temperature of 32 degrees. It is possible 
to keep peaches even longer than this under excep- 
tionally favorable conditions, but for commercial pur- 
poses even two weeks' storage is hardly to be gen- 
erally recommended. Storage will often help, how- 
ever, to tide over a temporary glut in the market; 
and such storage certainly furnishes a material addi- 
tion to our equipment for handling the peach crop. 

Tlums 

Plums ripen through a long season. This fact 
presents a certain difficulty in picking and shipping 
them. For home use plums should be allowed to 
hang on the trees as long as possible. They should 
be thoroughly ripe when picked. Even for shipping 
to market certain varieties are frequently picked too 
green. This is apt to be the case with the Damsons, 
German Prune, Pellenberg and similar varieties, 
which take on a heavy color long before they are 
really mature. On the other hand, some varieties 
are best picked for market at a period more or less in 
advance of maturity. The Burbank plum is an ex- 
ample. This variety can be picked a week before it 
is ripe, and will then mature in a satisfactory condi-' 



18 FRl IT- GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 



tion in a storage house or in a package. This plan 
of picking before the plums are fully ripe may often 
be resorted to with great advantage when plums are 
retting badly. In this way a considerable portion of 
the crop may often be saved from rot. 

Plums should be picked w'th the stems on, when- 
eA'er that is possible. Many varieties, however, do 
not hold to the stems. In such cases the removal of 
stf ms at picking time does no harm except that it 
may injure the general appearance of the faced fruit 
to a limited degree. 

Plums should be picked in the early morning if 
possible, while they are cool, and should be trans- 
ferred at once to storage or to a cool place. If they 
are to be shipped to market they should be graded, 
packed, and sent off as expeditiously as possible. 

A good many growers make a great mistake by 
not grading plums. It is customary with many fruit 
men, who are otherwise careful with such things, to 
send plums to market just as they come from the 
tree. Now the plum is essentially fancy 'fruit, and 
requires such special attentions as are always due a 
fancy article. Plums should not only be graded, but 
the best ones, at least when packed in small pack- 
ages, should be carefully faced. In some cases it is 
even best to wrap the individual fruits in paper. 

There is no standard package for plums. Each 
grower will choose his own package with reference 
to the fruit he has to ship and the demands of his 
market. The best California plums are usually sent 
to market in a special square box of wood veneer 
holding about two quarts. Many of the eastern 
growers have found the common quart box used for 
strawberries to be the most satisfactory for plums. 
The writer has used with much satisfaction the 3-lb. 
bail-less grape basket. The 4-quart bail-less basket, 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 49 

such as is used in Georgia peach carriers, is also 
entirely satisfactory for shipping plums. These three 
packages last named may be conveniently crated in 
the ordinary strawberry crate, and this makes a con- 
venient and good package for shipment. Other 
packages which have been used for plums are the 
5 and 10-lb. Climax grape basket with stiff handles; 
diamond splint basket in various sizes, and the Jer- 
sey peach basket, especially in the 8, 12, and 16-qt. 
sizes. For a nearby retail market for plums of ordi- 
nary quality the writer prefers the 16-qt. Jersey 
peach basket. For consignment to city markets, at 
least in the eastern states, the best results are se- 
cured with small packages, down to one quart, 
packed in small crates. Packages holding one-half 
bushel or less seem to find the most favor. 

Plums are seldom held in cold storage; but in any 
case where a delay in marketing is desirable the ben- 
efits of cold storage may be adopted. The length 
of time which plums will keep in cold storage varies 
greatly. If they are soft, over-ripe, and affected with 
rot, it is hardly worth while to store them at all. On 
the other hand, such varieties as Fellenburg, Brad- 
shaw, Grand Duke, etc., when in good condition, 
would doubtless keep without serious deterioration 
from one to two months in good storage. 

We have never known of plums being shipped in 
carlots to distant markets. We have seen Mr. Hale, 
however, sending partial carloads in the same car 
with peaches from his Georgia orchard to New York. 
In such cases plums should be given the benefits of 
the refrigerator car service, just as peaches are. 

Quinces 

Quinces should not be picked until they are ripe 
and well colored. This direction seems so obvious 
that one would hardly believe how often it is disre- 



50 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

garded. Green, unripe quinces are about as unat- 
tractive as anything that can be bought on a fruit 
stand. In order to get the fruit in a suitable condi- 
tion for selling, it is often necessary to pick over the 
trees two or three times. Such extra pickings are 
well worth while. 

When the fruit is picked, it is immediately sorted, 
packed, and sent to storage or market. Long storage 
is seldom profitable, since the demand for quinces 
comes nearly all at the time of the quince harvest. 

The fruit should be very carefully graded since the 
market for quinces is always a fastidious one. Speci- 
mens which are at all bruised or soiled by fungus 
should be discarded and the remaining specimens 
graded according to size. The discarded fruit is not 
worthless, however. It makes excellent jelly, and 
is good even for preserving and canning. Of course, 
it will have to be sold at a lower price than first- 
grade fruit, but it will still bring a good revenue 
and will not damage the sale of the first-grade stuff. 

It has been practiced in past years to ship quinces 
in apple barrels. Half barrels have sometimes been 
used. Neither of these packages is satisfactory. Both 
should be discarded. Quinces should always be sold 
in a small package. Twenty-pound baskets have 
been used by some growers with considerable suc- 
cess. The 16-qt. Jersey peach basket has been found 
satisfactory, especially where long shipments were 
not involved. In shipping any distance the bushel 
box one of the best packages. It has always been 
our experience further that it pays well to wrap 
good quinces in paper. This fruit shows very badly 
the effect of any bruise, and the paper largely pre- 
vents bruising. 

The quince has often proved to be one of the most 
profitable fruits. The demand for it, however, is 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 51 

uiicertain. No man should undertake to make hi? 
fortune on quinces unless he is up to the tricks. 

Tears 

Pears are very often picked before they are thor- 
oughly ripe. In fact, this is the customary way. It 
is a question whether this custom is well founded or 
not, but nevertheless such has long been the prac- 
tice. Some late dessert varieties may doubtless best 
be handled by picking them fairly early and putting 
them in a dark place to ripen. The somewhat com- 
mon practice of picking Kieffer underripe and send- 
ing to storage with the expectation of ripening there 
is not so defensible. The experiments carried on by 
Powell show that Kieffer may l-e picked during a 
considerable season, at least three weeks in Dela- 
ware and Maryland. When pears are sent to storage, 
in any case they should be handled very carefully 
and should be stored as soon as possible after 
picking. 

The pear is essentially, and in most cases prac- 
tically, a fancy fruit, and is to be handled as such. 
The practice which was common a few years ago of 
sending Bartlett, Duchess, Anjou, Sheldon, Winter 
Nelis, and similar varieties to market in apple bar- 
rels is wrong. Fortunately during recent years it 
has been largely discontinued. Pears have sometimes 
been sent to market in baskets. The diamond splint 
baskets have been used, also Climax baskets, and even 
more commonly the New Jersey peach basket. Such 
packages, however, are not logical ones for pears. 
Although it has not been very extensively used, the 
bushel box is probably the best pear package under 
ordinary circumstances. The fruit should be care- 
fully packed in these, usually each specimen being 
wrapped in paper. For fancy fruit half bushel boxes 



i2 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEDPH, MO. 



would be even better, although the market is not 
accustomed to them. 

Pears will keep for a considerable time in cold 
storage. The length of practicable and profitable 
storage of course depends very largely on conditions, 
especially on the quality and condition of the fruit 
and upon the variety. Kieffer and Bartlett will keep 
well until after Christmas in good storage. The best 
temperature for holding pears seems to be 32 
degrees. 

The prices received for pears vary immensely. 
They run from nothing at all up to $3 a dozen for 
fancy fruit. Every one must have remarked that 
eastern markets are never supplied with good dessert 
pears. The bulk of the fruit stand trade is supplied 
with California stock, which is never attractive to 
eastern consumers. It is a rarity to see good home- 
grown pears offered in any of the markets east of 
the Rocky Mountains. On the face of it, this looks 
as though there was a good opportunity to make 
some money in pear culture. The men who have the 
soil and climate adapted to it ought to try it. 

Cherries 

In California, and in a very few places in the 
eastern states, sweet cherries are grown for market. 
These- are handled in a manner quite different from 
the methods employed with sour cherries. 

These sweet cherries are always a dessert deli- 
cacy. Frequently they are destined to be eaten out 
of hand. It is expected, therefore, that they will be 
sold in small quantities only. Thus they are put up 
in small lots and in fancy packages, and every effort 
is spent to make them look as attractive as possible. 
They are for what is known as the fruit stand trade. 

It is a curious fact worth noting that sweet cher- 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 53 

ries are sold in essentially the same way on the con- 
tinent of Europe. Whenever during the cherry sea- 
son a train stops at almost any way station in Prance, 
Switzerland or southern Germany, girls and women 
come crowding around with little baskets or paper 
cones filled with ripe sweet cherries. These are sold 
to the passengers on the train at prices usually about 
equal to 15 or 20 cents a pound. The sweet cherries 
are sold in all the city markets of Germany, France 
and Switzerland at retail in the same way. In the 
handling of no other fruit are the markets of con- 
tinental Europe and of North America so much alike 
as in the selling of sweet cherries. 

The California cherries, which are the commonest 
of the sweet cherries in our American markets, now 
usually come in small shallow wooden boxes holding 
three or four pounds. The cherries are nicely sorted 
and are placed in these boxes in tiers and rows in 
exact geometrical order. Th;s gives them a very 
showy appearance, especially when varieties of divers 
colors are worked together into some sort of pattern. 

Sweet cherries from the eastern states are usually 
sent to market in quart strawberry boxes. While 
this is a good way, it is not so good as the California 
method, and it is a question whether even the eastern 
growers of sweet cherries would not find the more 
expensive packages and the more elaborate methods 
of packing somewhat more profitable. 

Sour cherries, like Morello, Richmond and Mont- 
morency, are more commonly grown in the eastern 
states, the central states and in Canada. Still the 
market for this luscious fruit is not by any means 
half supplied. The present practice is to send these 
sour cherries to market in quart strawberry boxes 
crated, just as strawberries are shipped. While the 
present conditions of under-sup,ply prevail this 
method is very good. It may be worth considering, 



54 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

however, whether the use of Climax baskets in 5 or 
even 8-lb. sizes would not please many customers. 
The fact is that the best buyers of sour cherries want 
them for canning or preserving, not for immediate 
use as dessert. Such customers always want as 
much as five or eight pounds, and for them the Cli- 
max basket would be handier and more attractive 
than the quart strawberry cup. If the time ever 
comes when the supply catches up with the demand, 
as nearly as it has in the marketing of apples, for 
instance, we shall surely see larger packages used 
for sour cherries. 

Stralvberries 

Whenever I see a great public economist (general 
manager to the government by his own appointment) 
telling how to regulate the trusts, how to handle the 
national currency, how to control all transportation 
matters, and how to reform things generally, I 
always think what fun it would be to see him trying 
to run a gang of strawberry pickers. In many ways 
it is harder to handle a large crop of strawberries 
than it. is to run the government At any rate I am 
convinced that some of the men who are in the 
strawberry business are smarter than some of the 
men who are in Congress. 

One of the most serious problems in the straw- 
berry business is that of securing a suitable force of 
pickers. In the southern states growers naturally 
depend largely on negro labor. In the northern 
states women and children are looked to for the 
principal help. Near factory towns such help is 
usually most abundant, and such places are often 
chosen on that account for commercial strawberry 
growing. In some places Italian pickers are used; 
in other places colonies of Polanders serve the end; 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 55 

but always and everywhere one must foresee this 
peculiar labor problem before he goes extensively 
into the cultivation of strawberries. 

Help of the kind here discussed is naturally and 
necessarily unsatisfactory. The wandering bands of 
negroes who follow the picking season from South 
Carolina to New Jersey are seldom the best men and 
women of their color. { In many towns it is the 
accepted rule that special policemen must be put on 
as soon as the strawberry pickers appear. ) The 
Italians and Polanders who go about picking straw- 
berries are oydy less nomadic and irresponsible than 
the negroes. / It has been found absolutely necessary 
in many places to adopt the rule that no picker shall 
be paid even a part o* his or her wage until the end 
of the picking season, jlf a grower should be so kind- 
hearted or crazy as to pay his pickers on the first 
Saturday night of the season many of them would 
immediately get drunk on the money and all of them 
would move on to some other place, leaving him 
without any pickers on Monday morning. 

Intelligent girls of 16 to 60 years old are said 
to make the best pickers, especially American or 
French girls. Some growers regard proper picking 
of so much importance that they take special pains 
to select only the best pickers. Usually such men 
pay wages somewhat higher than the average, or 
offer other inducements. One grower of my ac- 
quaintance, besides paying good wages, gives a big 
strawberry supper at the end of the season, at which 
his pickers are his guests. These strawberry suppers 
are said to be a howling success, and a picker would 
work a month in the rain rather than miss the sea- 
son's fete. 

Picking is usually piece work, and pickers receive 
from 1 to 2 cents a quart. The average is about 1^ 



56 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

cents. In the south the pay is sometimes as low as 

Vz to ^i cents a quart. 

j^K,.-"^ A^arious methods have been tried of keeping 

l^y^ accxjunt of the pickers' work, but the one nowyalmost 

^^jJ^^ universally adopted is the punch-card system, j Each 

picker is provided with a punch-card. 'When 

a picker has a certain number of baskets filled 

t with fruit he delivers them to the foreman, and 

A 'the foreman punches the picker's card w'ith the num- 

' - ber picked. The picker keeps these cards till the day 

, of settlement, in most cases, and the grower pays 

"' what these punched cards call for. The great ad- 

• vantage of this system is that it leaves the picker in 

P'.'-^ sole charge of the evidence of his work, and thus 
prevents any quarrels over the amount of fruit 
picked. 

A similar plan requires two of these cards, and 
both are punched at one operation. Thus the picker 
and the foreman each has a record. 

Strawberries are almost always picked into the 
quart baskets in which they are sold. In fields 
where the fruit is sorted before being sent to market 
this is still the practice, the quart baskets being the 
most convenient receptacle for picking and measur- 
ing the crop. When berries are sorted they are sim- 
ply poured out of the boxes and sorted back into 
them again. 

It is customary and advisable to provide each 
picker with a small tray holding six baskets of fruit. 
This tray has a light bail and four short legs. Such 
trays can be made for about 5 to 7 cents each, or can 
be bought ready-made of dealers in fruit packages. 

We have referred above to the sorting of the 
fruit. Many growers practice this as a regular thing. 
Probably a greater number do not. The question of 
whether it will pay to sort or not must be settled by 



PACKING AlVD MARKETING FRUITS 57 

every grower for himself, and can be determined in 
a given case only by test. If there is an accessible 
market where an extra price can be secured for 
a fancy product, then grading the fruit will usually 
pay. If there is not, then grading is almost certainly 
a waste of effort. It is a noteworthy fact, however, 
that many of the best growers find that it pays 
them well to grade their strawberries, putting the 
best ones by themselves and facing up the baskets 
in attractive fashion. 

The Stralvberry Package 

. strawberries are nearly always sold in quartCT 
boxes, baskets or cups.) These are made of woodjj^^ 
veneer or of paper. TJie waxed paper baskets are 
very attractive for a local trade, but do not ship so^ ^'j 
well as strong wooden boxes. These quart boxes are 
made in four sizes, viz.: (1) "full quarts," (2) "stand- 
ard quarts," (3) "short quarts," and (4) "skin^^U^„ 
quarts." It is rather a remarkable commentary ontX^i 
the business that these terms, "short quarts" and vl 
"skin quarts," should be regularly used in the trade. >} 
The moral aspect of this question has often been dis- 
cussed, but we believe it has never been fully ascer- 
tained whether the fruit-grower, the buyer or the 
consumer will have to suffer for it in the hereafter. 
Of the four sizes named the "standard quarts" are 
in commonest use, though some markets and some 
growers prefer the "short quarts." 

Pint boxes are sometimes used for very fancy 
fruit or for long shipments. Fruit naturally carries 
better the smaller the package. But the pint pack- 
age for strawberries is a very small item in the trade 
as a whole. 

The quart boxes are always shipped to market 
in crates. Standard crates hold either 24, 32, 48 or 



58 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

60 quarts. The intermediate sizes are most in de- 
mand. For fancy fruit or long shipments preference 
is usually given to the smaller crates, though this 
preference is not without exception. Some growers 
of great experience say that the 60-qt. crate is best 
for -express shipping; and the reason given is that, 
while an express messenger can throw a 24-qt. 
crate half way across the platform, it requires two 
men to lift a 60-qt. crate. The heavy package there- 
fore gets the most careful handling. 

Strawberries are largely shipped to commission 

merchants, just as other fruits are consigned. The 

very perishable nature of the fruit, however, makes 

this method risky, so that as many growers as can 

do so prefer to depend on private agents or to sell 

direct to some buyer. In the large strawberry cen- 

^^^yters, like Ridgley, Md,, or Oswego, N. Y., buyers 

•^"^^p./^ 4lways appear in numbers and bid for the crop as it 

>^j^'y<'>is hauled to the railroad stations by the growers, 

, ip^ Sometimes one method is best for the grower; some- 

'MJf^ tknes another is. It all depends. The only gener- 

^'^-^■' alization which can fairly be made is that this deli- 

*• ' cate fruit should be handled as promptly as possible 

and with the least possible hitch between grower and 

consumer. For this reason direct retail sales must 

always be the most satisfactory way of handling 

strawberries; and the best growers will always seek 

this method of sale, or will come as near to it as 

their curcumstances will allow. 

The prices realized for the fruit vary immensely 
■ — perhaps more than with any other kind of fruit. 
Hothouse berries often bring $1 a quart — sometimes 
twice or three times that much. The first berries 
from Florida nearly always sell in northern markets 
at 50 cents a quart and upwards. On the other hand, 
growers in Maryland and Delaware at the rush sea- 
son, are sometimes compelled to accept 3 to 5 cents 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 59 



a quart, or even less. The usual retail price in 
northern markets is 10 to 15 cents a quart, and grow- 
ers realize usually from 8 to 12 cents. 

"Bush Truits 

Raspberries and blackberries are somewhat ex- 
tensively handled in our American markets, but 
gooseberries and currants have nowhere nearly the 
comparative importance that they have in foreign 
markets. Raspberries and blackberries are usually 
picked and handled much the same as strawberries. ^ -'■* 
They are almost always put up in quart boxes and^^v^iu., 
shipped in crates, exactly like strawberries. Fine red T|^ 
raspberries, however, are more frequently packed in*^' 
small — say, 1-pint — boxes, at least in the east. In- f^'Y** 
deed, this is a favorite way of handling them. Thel>'»f-*- 
fruit, being rather soft, handles better in the small 
packages, and being rather high in price sells better 
in this way. Blackberries are never sold in these 
pint cups, so far as the writer knows. 

The prices paid pickers for picking raspberries or 
blackberries are usually a trifle less than for picking 
strawberries. They run from one-half cent to one 
and a half cents a quart. The pickers are managed 
in the same way, and the accounts kept in like man- 
ner, usually on a set of punch cards. 

Dewberries are handled in all ways like blackber- 
ries. In fact, when they reach the consumer they are 
blackberries. The retailers never call them dew- 
berries. 

Gooseberries, when sent to market at all, are 
usually shipped in the same quart boxes, put up in 
crates, just as strawberries are. There is a very small 
sale for gooseberries in this country, and it seems to 
be growing proportionately smaller. In the old 
world, where they grow gooseberries of a different 



60 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

sort, and allow them to ripen fully on the vines, they 
are one of the favorite fruits in the markets. 

Currants have a better standing in this covintry, 
being used largely for jelly, and even for dessert by 
^ some enterprising housewives. Currants, too, are 
0,PNA/^. usually marketed in quart boxes, and are therefore 
■ '^'" usually shipped in crates like strawberries. Some- 
'^dU times, however, they are shipped in 3-lb. or 5-lb. 
^ , Climax baskets with handles, such as are used for 
grapes. This is an excellent package, if the fruit is 
firm enough to bear shipment without crushing. In 
local markets currants are sold in all sorts of pack- 
ages, and in fact are often dealt out in bulk without 
any package at all. This method is not to be recom- 
mended in any case. If the currants are worth sell- 
ing they are worth handling well. 

Grapes 

There are a great many different kinds of grapes 
grown in this country, but for commercial purposes 
the Concord may be considered the type of them all, 
and it also furnishes a large majority of the crop 
annually sent to market. Grapes grown under glass 
have to be handled very differently, but they are so 
seldom grown and marketed in America that we may 
fairly disregard them in this article. 

In ripening the fruit, very different matters have 
to be considered in different parts of the country, and 
with different varieties. In the southwestern states 
care has to be taken that the fruit is not cooked on 
the vines, or not prematurely ripened by the exces- 
sive hot sun. In the northern states everj^ effort has 
to be made to secure all the sunlight and heat pos- 
sible. In some cases grapes fail to ripen altogether 
for lack of sufficient heat. Different varieties differ 
greatly in this respect. Catawba, for example, re- 
quires much more heat to ripen thoroughly than 



PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 61 

Delaware does. But any variety should be thor- 
oughly ripened on the vines. Unripe grapes do not 
ship nor keep any better than those fairly well 
ripened, and they certainly are not so well received 
by customers. One of the best ways of reducing the 
demand for grapes is to send them to market green 
and sour. In the northeastern states it is not uncom- 
mon to allow the fruit to hang on the vines after the 
leaves have fallen, thus securing ripe grapes when 
earlier picking would yield only sour and unpala- 
table fruit. 

The fruit is picked with small scissors or pruning 
shears made for the purpose. These should be both 
small and strong. The scissors used for thinning out 
bunches are not very good for picking. In the field 
the grapes are picked into any convenient receptacle. 
Usually the best thing is the half bushel picking bas- 
ket used for apples. In our own work we pick grapes 
into large shallow trays which nest up one above 
another, leaving a shallow air space between. These 
trays are carried with the grapes in them into the 
cooling room. The fruit remains in these trays from 
one to ten days, until it is sorted and packed for 
market. This method is used only on a compara- 
tively small scale and for a local market. 

Usually the baskets as picked in the field are de- 
livered promptly to the packing house. Here the 
fruit is spread out on a narrow table before the 
sorters and packers (usually girls and women), by 
whom it is picked over and packed. All decayed, 
green and defective berries are cut out with sharp- 
pointed scissors, and the bunches are deftly and 
snugly stowed in the baskets. 

The package which is almost universally used for 
grapes is the Climax basket. These are made in 
various sizes, the most popular being 3-lb., 5-lb., 8-lb. 



62 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

and 10 -lb. Of these the smaller sizes have the pref- 
rence. We have found 3-lb baskets without handles 
entirely satisfactory in the local market, but they 
cannot be recommended for the general trade. 

Good grapes, ripened without too much heat, yet 
hanging on the vines till the beginning of cool 
weather, can be stored almost as satisfactorily as 
apples. Hundreds of tons are held in "common" and 
"cold" storage every winter. In cold storage they 
should have a temperature of 33 degrees. Houses 
for common storage of grapes are made and operated 
exactly like those for the common storage of apples. 



CONTENTS. 

Page 

Apple Barrels 19 

Apple Boxes 21 

Apple Storage 33 

Bush Fruits 59 

Cherries 52 

Comparison of Apple Barrels 19 

' Grapes 60 

Picking Apples 11 

Packing Apples 24 

Peaches 42 

Pears 51 

Plums 47 

Quinces 49 

Sorting Apples 16 

Strawberries 54 

The Fruit Markets 7 

The Strawberry Package 57 



IWAR 23 1905 



.: ■<. 






LBJL '05 




'^h 



0m 



